Okay, maybe it’s not that exciting, especially when you realize that the Mirage from Arcane Technologies is not a stylish pair of glasses or even some retro steampunk goggles outfitted with AR HMD gear. The unit looks so bulky and bland that not even Lady Gaga could make it trendy.

But it IS an AR HMD.

But really it’s made for industrial usage and not everyday street wear. Though I suppose, a truly hardcore AR enthusiast could augment their home and wear them safety inside without worrying about losing a chance to ever have another date. Again. Ever.

The Mirage TM Augmented Reality System is a complete solution allowing you to create your own AR experience by inserting virtual content into the real environment. It includes a high-end stereoscopic OLED video see-through HMD and the MirageBuilder TM AR authoring software that work together to track different targets and display overlay near or onto them. The stereoscopic display allows the user to perceive depths for the most realistic experience and OLED technology offers the best color image quality available in head mounted displays today.

The Mirage TM HMD includes two cameras that are placed in front of the OLED ocular displays. The cameras send the images of the surroundings to the attached computer and the software uses image processing algorithms to detect marker patterns in the image. If one or more marker patterns are detected, those patterns are used to compute the 3D pose of the associated contents and then the overlay is drawn over the camera images for both eyes. The images are then sent back to the OLED ocular displays in front of both eyes. The result is a highly realistic and accurate stereoscopic realtime AR experience !

The system comes with authoring software so you can customize your markers. I’d be curious if you could also use third party software like the Kinect to make it even groovier. The Mirage + Kinect could become quite an indie hardcore hit. However, since they don’t list the price on their website, I assume the cost is greater than even the most hardcore could afford.

Still, it IS another AR HMD on the market and to me we’re another step closer to stylish low-cost AR HMDs. I’m still predicting 2015 as my arrival date for said glasses, but hopefully someone will surprise me and deliver a product sooner.

warning – this is another one of my nasty posts. Reader discretion is advised.

Is there such a thing as pregnancy induced stupidity? If you examine Simubaby‘s premise you might reach such a conclusion. How else would you justify its business model? Simubaby, the brain child of the Spanish Atlantis Virtual Reality is a commercial product harnessing the power of augmented reality to help pregnant mothers-to-be visualize how their fetus looks like. Unlike a similar solution from Talking Dog Studios, this one comes with a belt.

Nothing to get mad about you say? Well, you haven’t heard the price yet.
It’s 60 euros (77 US dollars). And that’s after a price cut from 80€. But, don’t think of it as 60€ for an ugly belt just so you have somewhere to put the AR marker. No, you also get access to some amazing AI:

With the advice of experts, we have recreated the most important stages of your baby’s growth and with the aid of an artificial intelligence system.

In case you still think that’s a product worth paying for, then I’ve got news for you! I’ve recently secured access to some magic beans, guaranteed to increase your baby’s intelligence using the aid of quantum entanglement system. Only 59.99€ for a bag of 10 beans, and shipping is free.

Yes, it seems that the Japanese branch of Yahoo is much cooler than its American counter part. They have recently announced the coming release of a free iPhone application set to display a virual Zaku II mecha from the animated series Gundam (and sorry if I get this wrong, I’ve never seen it).
Interestingly enough the application is both image-recognition based and GPS/compass based. It will show the mecha when the iPhone camera will be directed at the (real) 18-meter tall Gundam statue in Shizuoka, Japan, and when the camera is pointed at a special marker.

Addicted to Farmville? Have a green thumb but no garden? Envy real farmers but got allergies?
The guys from TU Munich have the perfect solution for you:

Augmented Farmville could be one heck of a layer for Layar/Junaio/Wikitude once better positioning is available. Think of the gold rush to get a virtual plot in major cities, imagine Times Square as a flower bed! Using real meteorological data to those virtual farms would add another interesting and educational twist. It may be the most stupid idea I have ever featured in this blog, but then again, nobody would guess that a farm simulator will be one of the most successful games in 2010.

If you happen to be in Amsterdam this Saturday (either because you live there or can’t get back home because your flight is canceled), you may want to check out the first AR flash mob. It turns out that in an augmented flash mob, the mob consists of virtual characters bounded to markers:

Sander Veenhof who is behind this interesting event hopes that tourists will opt to take pictures with the virtual characters rather then with the usual “live sculptures”. I personally doubt it, but if you want to take part in this experiment, the precise location and timing can be found here.

Well, it’s porn all-right, but the AR is gimmicky at best. Here’s Pink Visual’s Amanda Cory explaining the potential of such application –

And here’s a close-up video of the application itself, showing how much the potential is left unfulfilled at the moment (sorry, you’ll have to follow the link due to some mild nudity). Not to mention the intrinsic problem of flash-based AR porn – porn websites can record everything that is visible by your webcam while using the application. Isn’t that exciting?